Hoodsport is indeed in full swing. I started fishing at 8am, surprised by the sparce mid-week crowds. Plenty of fish to go around. Fishing from a boat, I started off slow compared to those around me but eventually found the right retrieve speed (moderately fast, start reeling as soon as the corky hits the water) and was into plenty of fish. I ended up catching about 10 and losing again as many, plus many hits that didn't get hooked. The fish were all over a small pink corky with green yarn, 3 foot leader and small sliding egg weight. I even caught two that were bright - chrome enough to keep, which is unusual. The fresher fish wound take running jumps and you could see them swarming. Just cast into those swarms and it was fish on! I will make an observation and comment. I snagged only one fish all day. The rest were hooked firmly inside the mouth. And these fish were hitting my bait for sure. There was no doubt on the strikes. So it was kind of sad that the five other boats around me were all throwing buzz bombs and spinners with treble hooks. I don't think I saw one fair hooked fish in those boats. Sure, they had fish on all the time and I had lots of misses, but when I had a fish on it was a lot more fun than dragging a fish in tail first. It's just plain lazy to be tossing that hardware after these fish!

Any idea how much longer the Hoodsport fishery will hold out? I probably won't be able to get back down there until 11/23 or so. Are new chums arriving into the Zone still? Hoodsport seems to be about the only game in town these days, at least on the saltwater, without 'riggers to go after blackmouth. My boat is definitely not river-able.

Regards.

Finegrain
Woodinville

Hood Canal should be good till the end of the year for chums. At least it was last year.

I was talking with someone from the hatchery yesterday as well as a Skok tribal policeman and they both said that the run peaks at Thanksgiving. They said the number of fish they are seeing this week is what it looks like at thanksgiving. They are surprised at the number of fish that are returning so far, so it will only be getting better which is hard to believe. They already have all the fish that they need, 8.5 million eggs.
Now for the snaggers. Most of the fish that I have caught have been fair hooked, a few were fouled. But I saw things that made me sick. One gentleman, and I use that term very lightly, had his 1 oz weight below the hook by about 6 inches and a little green yarn on the hook. He asked me how many fish was the limit and the procceded to foul hook his next three fish. All whacked and stack, his fourth fish was fair and he took it and left. I tried to explain to him that fouled fish need to be released but his english wasn't all that strong. I pulled out of one fish, a 6 oz chunk of green lead painted green with a 6/0 treble in his vent fin. I would also guess that 30% of the people I have seen fishing the last 4 days didn't have a tag or license. I have yet to see a game warden. I would think that they could make a few dollars in just a few minutes. My guess that they feel this is a meat fishiery and so who cares, well I do. The law is the law, I follow it, I expect others to as well. I know a deputy that I take fishing from time to time, and I've talked to him about what goes on. Well he was at chico the other day with a game warden and was surprised how many people didn't have licenses. A number of tickets were handed out.
Ok, I will get off my soap box.

Tight lines and many fish

Matthew <img border="0" alt="[eat]" title="" src="graemlins/eat.gif" />

Thanks, guys. I won't stress about the show being over by next weekend.

Regards.

Finegrain
Woodinville

I caught several fish that were bright, as in shiny bright. I was surprised by the quality of them. And they put up the best fight, even better than some of the biger ones I caught. I hadn't fished Hoodsport this early before so I'm sure that was part of it. Like Carl said, the fishing should hold up into December easily, but by then the steelhead will be showing so I'll be moving on.
BTW Carl, I checked out the spot we fished last year and there were no fish there yet, so you have that to look forward to when Hoodspot die off.
As far as WDFW watching over HS, I also think they pretty much let it go for the meat fishery it is. They could clean up if they wanted to and frankly I wish they would. There is no reason for guys snagging the way they do, I know that now for sure.

Last weekend I couldn't even count the ammount of fish I saw swim by my feet with gear hanging out of their asses. It was unbelievable to me. Not having a boat I would stand on a big rock "away from the zone" and just watch hundreds of fish swim by.

We did not hook one fish foul last weekend. There is no need. They are very active as posted above.

Anyway maybe wardens will show up some day. All they need is one saturday as many people I saw down there.

MIKE C
??? What times were you catching fish? I noticed around 10a.m it let off. I want to know because I may go tommorrow but can't get down there tell about 9 or 10 and with the drive i would like to stay.

I have noticed, say over an eight hour period, the bite can be very sporatic with Zone chums. You can really be hittin'em for an hour or so then the bite dies off for 30-45 minutes. Then the bite is back on for 30 minutes then dies off for 20 minutes. Kind of weird. I would not worry about a "best time of day" for Zone chums. The Zone is good all day long for the most part. The best time of day for fisherman is at low tide.

[img]http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/cgi-bin/pursuits/uploader.pl?action=view&epoch=1037049875[/img]
(Is it just me or is there a problem with image?)
Snag This!

GutZ you are waaaay too funny! I like it!

The image is fine. The URL for the image is incorrect.

Here you go GutZ!



Edit: Sorry Carl, it looks like you beat me to it.

While at Hoodsport last weekend I noticed several spots north of the hatchery (along 101) where the fish seemed to be congregating. I thought this might be a good place to try the herring/float thing and see if it really works. So I am going to try it, maybe this weekend. If the plan fails I will return to the zone and floss away.

I have been to Hoodsport 4-5 times in my fishing career and have had fun every time. It is a great place to take a beginning fisherman. Sometimes new people are overwhelmed by the craziness of it all, but it does make for a unique experience that is not soon forgotten.

Like Easy said, the bite comes and goes. I had real hot action around 11:30 to 12:45, the rest was on/off. And I think it had as much to do with fresh fish swimming by as anything else. The bright jumpers would hit the corky within seconds of it hitting the water. So just go whenever, you'll be into fish I'm sure.